The 1970s wis a period when video recordin acame a major contributor tae the televeesion industry. Like mony ither technological innovations, each o several companies made an attempt tae produce a televeesion recordin staundart that the majority o the warld would embrace. At the peak o it aw, the home video industry wis caucht up in a series o videotape format wars. Twa o the formats, VHS an Betamax, received the maist media exposur. VHS would eventually win the war, an tharefore succeed as the dominant home video format, lastin throughoot the tape furmat period.[4]

In later years, optical disc furmats began tae affer better quality than video tape. The earliest o these formats, Laserdisc, wis nae widely adoptit, but the subsequent DVD format eventually did achieve mass acceptance an replaced VHS as the preferred method o distribution efter 2000.[5]